


two hearts in one home

by wekeepeachotherhuman



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force-Sensitive Finn, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Pre-Relationship, They both have so much love to give!, and want to give it to one another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 09:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13186794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekeepeachotherhuman/pseuds/wekeepeachotherhuman
Summary: Poe helps to teach Finn how to fly an X-Wing. But Finn's a natural.





	two hearts in one home

“It’s really not that complicated,” Poe says flippantly.

“Yeah,” Finn scoffs back, looking down at all the controls on the X-Wing simulator. Sure, he’d picked up a TIE Fighter pretty quick, but this was just damn daunting. “Says you. You’ve been doing in this your sleep since you were a baby. Or whatever.”

“No, I didn’t mean…” Poe backtracks. He hates to sound condescending. Especially to Finn. The guy would probably surpass him one day, so he couldn’t exactly get on his bad side. Not that Poe Damerson particularly wanted to be on Finn’s bad side anyway. And the whole Resistance base would never let him forget it. Even a damn droid (who wasn’t BB-8) had commented on how taken Poe seemed by the new recruit. Point being: he _likes_ Finn. _A lot_. He never wanted to be the reason Finn felt sad or angry, or frustrated. “I just mean,” he starts again. “It’ll take a second. You practice. You’ll get better.” And Poe almost immediately feels himself grimace.  _That_ had been all that he could come up with. _You practice. You get better_.

Finn smiles, looks down at the controls in front of him. “That’s very insightful.”

Poe groans, but he can’t help but smile back. “You wanna learn to fly or not.”

“Yes!” Finn protests. “Yeah, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, would I?”

“Okay, so flip those two toggles there, those start the reactors,” Poe says. Finn does what he says and the sim comes to life. “Alright, so now you see that red toggle on the far left?” Finn looks, reaches for it.

“Yeah.”

“And the same one on the far right?”

“Got it,” Finn says, flipping that one as well.

“Okay, so those arm your laser cannons,” Poe explains.

“We already know I’m pretty good with blasters,” Finn says, smiling.

Poe laughs, shaking his head. “I wish I could tell you to quit being cocky, but yeah, alright, we do know you’re pretty good with the cannons.” He tries to ignore the way Finn brightens right up, but he can’t. He can’t ignore the way Finn’s smile makes his inside go soft and pink.

“Damn right,” Finn mumbles.

“Alright now…” Poe means to tell him to pull the joystick back, but the simulator jolts upward. Finn’s already doing it. He doesn’t need a teacher so much as he needs a second set of eyes, just to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. “Slower next time,” Poe says instead. “You tell it, it’ll come with you.”

He doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to say. For now, Finn’s _good_. And he’ll only get better. He doesn’t need a simulator, not the way Poe had, or the way countless other Resistance pilots had before him; he needs to be up in the stars. Finn pulls the joystick to the left, the simulator swerves gently. Then it swerves right back.

Poe knows the simulation Finn’s doing. It’s an easy one. A follow-the-path type virtual reality on a forest planet. Finn navigates the trees easily. He hits a few branches when he tries to do something a little more complicated than he needs to, but it’s only because he’s having fun. And he’s having fun because he’d _good at this_. And Poe can’t help but think about something Leia had told him. Back when Finn was still in the medbay. Out of it and having his spine rebuilt in bacta.

“He put up one hell of a fight,” she’d said.

The long, jagged tear in the back of Poe’s jacket had been enough to tell him that. Poe’s about halfway through mending it. It sits in a heap on his lap. He’s doing a terrible job at it. He can admit that. He can’t even fathom what his father might say if he ever saw his handiwork. He’s got half a mind to just staple the thing back together.

“Yeah,” Poe says back, because it’s what you’re supposed to say. You’re not supposed to say that it doesn’t matter. You’re not supposed to say it doesn’t bring him back. You’re not supposed to say he shouldn’t have been there in the first place. You say yes because Finn had been _brave_. You say yes because that bravery made him a _hero_.

“He’d used my father’s lightsaber,” Leia says, pulling up a second chair. Poe watches her. He isn’t sure if she’s even really talking to him. “Same as Rey.”

“That’s supposed to mean something,” Poe says. Leia looks up at him. She looks sad. Lost in thought and old memories. “I don’t know much about the Force. But that’s supposed to _mean_ something.”

Leia looks down at her hands. She takes a deep breath. Poe has known her for most of his life. And all those years, she’d been the _General_. She was his leader, his surrogate guardian, his mentor. She’d always cared for him, wanted what was best for him, wanted him to be the best that he could be. She’d cared for him, but Poe could suddenly see: it was becoming his turn to do the same for her.

“We need to find Luke,” she says. She says ‘we’, but she means that _she_ needs him.

He reaches forward, puts his hand on hers. She looks down at their hands and then up into his eyes. He feels her, reaching out through every atom in his body, leaving gratitude and affection there.

“We will.”

Leia nods. “He can train Rey,” she says. Then she looks down at Finn. “Finn too.”

“You think he can be a Jedi?” Poe asks.

“I think he can become anything he wants to,” she says, and Poe can’t find a single bone in his body that disagrees with her. “His body knows the Force,” she says. “I can feel that in him.”

“We won’t let you down,” Poe hears himself say. “You won’t have fought for nothing. Rey and Finn. There’s goodness in them. Enough to burn the First Order down.”

She smiles, small but sure. Then, her eyes pause at the jacket in Poe’s hands. Half-sewn. Torn and put back together with thread that doesn’t match.

“Commander,” she says. “Are you sewing?”

Poe looks down at the worn leather and feels his cheeks suddenly start to go hot.

“Ugh… Yeah.”

She smiles. “You know, there are droids for that.”

“Yeah,” Poe says back to her. “I know.”

He’d mentioned both Rey and Finn by name when he’d talked about the goodness that could tear down and destroy the First Order, but General Leia Organa would never let him forget the goodness in himself as well.

She’d meant well, but looking at Finn now, healthy, flying, _excelling_ , he can’t always imagine himself keeping up. They hadn’t heard from Rey or Chewie on Ahch-To yet. But she would bring Luke Skywalker back with her, and then Skywalker would help Rey and Finn grow into the heroes that they were meant to be.

“You okay?” Finn suddenly asks.

Poe looks up at him. He realizes that the simulator’s been turned off. He’d missed that.

“What?” Poe mutters. “Yeah, I’m fine. You done? For now?”

“Yeah,” Finn says.

Poe nods, smiling, steeling himself. He holds a hand out and waits for Finn to take it and lift himself out of the starfighter.

When Finn does, Poe feels him watching him. He feels, just like he had with Leia, Finn reach out through every one of his atoms and leave concern and care there.

“You know what,” Poe finds himself saying. “I don’t know if I’m fine.”

That gives Finn pause. Poe doesn’t miss the way he steps closer. “Why? What happened?”

“You’re good at this,” Poe says, gesturing at the X-Wing. “You used _Anakin Skywalker_ ’s lightsaber,” he adds.

Finn sighs. “Leia told me,” he says. “What she thinks I can do. What I might be.”

Neither of them say the word _Jedi_.

“Doesn’t that scare you? Training, leaving people you love, the _dark side_.”

“Hell yeah,” Finn says right back. “Hell yeah it does.”

Poe laughs self-deprecatingly and hangs his chin down towards his chest. “I guess that’s it then,” he says. He nods. “I’m scared.” He scoffs harshly. “All the time.”

“That’s okay,” he hears Finn say. “This war won’t stop.”

“I know,” Poe says.

“We know it’s there. Half our fight is knowing that and facing this war anyway,” Finn says.

“Yeah,” Poe says.

“I’m not leaving,” Finn says. Getting to the bottom of this conversation right from the get-go. “I only know how to win this war with you. With Rey. With resistance. I’m not leaving,” he says again. He reaches out, takes the zipper of Poe’s jacket, fidgets with it. It’s a gesture that’s holding back. Poe can feel that. His skin itches for Finn to _stop. Don't hold back_. Finn looks up at him. Their eyes meet. “I don’t _want_ to.”

Poe reaches down, takes Finn’s hand off his zipper, but doesn’t let go. He feels Finn squeeze his hand back, and he just thinks: _fuck it_. Being scared, losing one another. It isn’t enough reason to hold back. Poe leans forward, presses his lips to Finn’s. He feels Finn’s hand in his hair. Finn kisses him hard. Kisses him like he’s just found home.


End file.
